Dodgers: Cody Bellinger Chats About 2019 Success with Alex Rodriguez

“I think we’re the best team in the league.”

Unless you’ve been living under the world’s biggest rock, you know that Dodgers slugger Cody Bellinger is in the middle of huge season. With that said, despite his best efforts, so does current Fox Sports analyst Alex Rodriguez.

Around the All-Star game, A Rod spoke with Cody about his development here in the 2019 season.

Bellinger opened by saying that he really didn’t look to 2018 for much to build off of, but instead focus on why he was “good” in 2017.

I kind of threw away 2018 — I was all over the place, so let’s not really watch it. Let’s get back to 2017 and why I was good.

[The Dodgers] did a great job of finding me ways to stay through baseballs. And with the way my swing is, when I stay through it, it’s naturally going to have the launch angle.

Rodriguez looks back to Bellinger’s high school career, where he was not a power hitter (only one home run in his HS career). “What has changed from Cody in high school to the guy that’s hitting home runs every night?”

Yeah, I didn’t hit homers in high school — I didn’t know how to hit homers. The biggest thing for me is growing into my body a little bit, but just understanding where I need to be with my stance every day to allow me to hit the baseball as consistent as I can.

The two dig a bit into the relationship between Cody and his father Clay, which is worth clicking on the video alone for. Beyond the Bellinger family connection, A Rod asked about what the younger Belli has learned from his World Series experiences.

Controlling the high pressure situations — obviously everything in the playoffs is amplified to the regular season, and maybe that’s why we’re having so much success.

Here’s hoping that Cody and the Boys in Blue can take those lessons learned to the promised land in 2019.

Clint is the lead editor of Dodgers Nation, and a host and analyst on Dodgers Nation's own Blue Heaven podcast live stream.

He's been writing, blogging, and podcasting Dodgers since about 2008. He was there for Nomar, Greg Maddux, and Blake DeWitt, and he'll be there for Walker Buehler, Alex Verdugo, Dustin May, and any Dodgers of the future.